Coack K Highest Paid College Coach At $9.6M/Yr

College athletics is BIG business, generating billions of dollars annually. So where does all that money go? Well, a portion of it goes to paying coaches hefty salaries and USA Today reports the largest benefactor of this compensation structure is none other than Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski who made a cool $9.6 million in 2011.

No. 1: Mike Krzyzewski, Duke: $9,682,032 In the 2011 calendar year, the period covered by the university’s most recently available federal tax return, Krzyzewski was credited with the greatest single-year compensation total for a college coach since USA TODAY Sports began tracking pay of football and men’s basketball coaches in 2006.

To put this number into perspective let’s look at how Coach K’s peers are compensated…In 2012 Rick Pitino made $5.7 million, John Calipari made $5.5 million, Bill Self made $4.9 million. But these are basketball coaches, what do the top college football programs pay their coaches? In 2013 Nick Saban made $5.5 million, Mack Brown made $5.4 million and Urban Meyer made $4.6 million.

In my research I decided to take it one step further and look at coaches pay on the professional level. Saints head coach Sean Payton made $8 million in 2013, Bill Belichick and Andy Reid made $7.5 million and Pete Carroll made $7 million.

Duke is a private university so their reporting requirements are different, but if Coach K made $9.6 in 2011 you better believe he made a similar figure in 2012 and 2013. With all that being said…Krzyzewski is straight cashing out.